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The Seven-Year Auto Loan: America’s Middle Class Can’t Afford Its Cars

5K views 22 replies 8 participants last post by  TrailDust 
#1 ·

Incomes have risen at a sluggish pace in the past decade, but car prices have grown rapidly. New technological and safety features, such as larger and more sophisticated multimedia displays, have made even the most basic cars more expensive. U.S. consumers have also veered toward pricier rides such as sport-utility vehicles that tend to dominate auto showrooms. The result is that consumers are seeking bigger loans than ever to purchase a car.
For most Americans, they tend to love CUVs and trucks, and obviously they cost more than cars for the most part. A lot of these consumers are probably driving vehicles that are more than they realistically can afford.
 
#4 ·
The link won't let us read the whole article without subscribing and signing in. Don't want to do that, but I got the gist of the article just reading the first few lines. The buying public has become like congress: Always raising its debt ceiling without ever once considering to live within its means. Yeah, my car has 381K miles on it and the paint is faded, but you know what? It works fine and I've never made any payments on it. I am not a slave to the auto finance companies.

There was an idea for a bumper sticker that read: "The Reason You're Broke?.........You're Driving It!"
 
#5 ·
"Most people have no clue about how to spend money properly, then blame all their financial issues on other people/sources."

Our educational system has failed to teach folks how to handle money. I found a book on personal finance in the "library" on board ship when I was in the Navy. I don't recall anything in it beyond the idea that living paycheck-to-paycheck was not a good idea. After that I started saving toward a comfortable retirement. Still had some of the toys, just didn't go into debt to get them.
 
#6 ·
It's not just the educational system to blame, but also parents and society at large via "child safety" laws. Follow....

Once upon a time, children could actually work in this country, that is until the enlightened Yuppie/Baby Boomer generation established and expanded the child safety bubble without end. Kids like myself used to get odd jobs at the local market, etc., or perhaps mowed lawns, worked paper routes, and did odd jobs for neighbors, learning personal responsibility in the process, as well as the importance of earning money, saving what you'd earned, and spending it with judiciousness. Today, the paradigm is the world is rife with dangers and laws to prevent the child labor slaughter, so children of all ages ask the parents for money and it's handed to them by the bushel. I could go on, but you get the idea. Children today reach adulthood with severely limited understanding of pride of work, personal responsibility, and responsibility in saving and spending what they earn. The onus is on parents to rectify this deficiency in child education, and via their initiatives correct the public education system as well.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I often describe Millennials as second generation Yuppies, because that is precisely what they are: They suffer all the familial and social damage being raised by Yuppie/Boomer parents, while mimicking their parents' immature and selfish behavior. I don't know if society will ever be able to repair the damage the Yuppie/Boomer generation brought to America, which is why I hate them so very much.



Each generation influences the next generation. Somewhere it reached a point where, "I don't want my child to suffer so lets do this instead" which then make their child's experience flawed to a point. It also just depends on the child's environment, growing up poor is gonna have a different perceptive than someone who has access to money. Some families everyone may work to pay the bills. Other families may kick their kid out after they reach 18 whether or not they are ready or not.

When I was working at Target, a family from Illinois came in to buy some items. I guess it is for their kid who was attending college here, they bought:
  • One or two 50" or 55" TVs
  • Microwave
  • Mini-fridge
  • Bunch of food
  • Maybe a gaming console
  • And a whole lot of items
  • Total was probably over $2500
  • They put all of their items into the big Range Rover and the small Range Rover
  • They offered me a tip but while I really wanted it I declined it because we are not allowed to take it
I had two trains of though here for their kid. "He is very lucky to get all of these" and "I wondered if he is a spoiled brat". Maybe his parents taught him good and it is worth it or his parents spoil him. I would never know. As far as I know for others, it's "you're going to college? good luck!" and off you go.
What you describe above is the "anything for my child" statement and attitude the Yuppie/Boomer generation has always said about raising their children. That translates to spend any amount of money on the kid, but actually spend near zero personal time with them (I don't consider the parents chatting with their high school-like cliques at softball and soccer games, with dinner takeout from Taco Bell to be personal time). Throw money at the kid and buy anything for them, and helicopter parent them into their first job out of college, all the while professing they "want my child independent by eighteen and he/she is out of the house."



How dare you!
It is all for the best of the children!!
Hold on, but what exactly is a child? Used to be maturity age at 16.. then 18.. then 21.. then 25... they are now talking about making it 30, what makes sense, considering how dumbed down and immature population comes out of schools, that teach zero of practicality and common sense but a lot about tolerance and gender stuff( I used to have ten years of consecutive crafts classes, including woodworking, metal works, electrical stuff, driving) and, by the last 2 years, we had 2 years of military and civil defense prep. I mean, we could - and did - make our own benches, operate lathe, drive a car, do basic electric repairs, disassemble and reassemble various arms and use them. Plus foreign language as a must do. Shoot, we even had classes on manners...
Oh, hold on, that was damn concentration camp commie totalitarian forced schooling, totally unacceptable in society that needs only 2 thumbs to text on smart phone and desire to become only a business manager, as China will manufacture everything else....
You have to love the new child safety bubble paradigm in America, don't you? Quite literally--and I often talk to my parents about this nowadays--how parents used to raise children forty years ago and longer is by today's standards criminal acts of child abuse, child endangerment, child neglect. America has lost so much in its society that it's disgusting. I could go on, but I'm preaching to the choir.



Somewhere it reached a point where, "I don't want my child to suffer so lets do this instead" which then make their child's experience flawed to a point. It also just depends on the child's environment, growing up poor is gonna have a different perceptive than someone who has access to money.

Seriously? Poor in THIS country? With free food, free clothes, free shelter, free medicine? I shit you not, I can do fine off clothes and food banks... That's of course, if you pass on mansions, all the entertainment, electronics, conveniences, "recreational" drugs, sports and so on.... what constitutes "normal" life. And spare me "I can't find job" tune too...
Y'all have no idea what poor is.
Most people don't really know what poor is really like and I am lucky to have my 08 Camry as my first car.
Absolutely agree. Yet again, anyone in America under about 50-years-old has no idea what poverty is. Truth be told, what is considered by government and society today to be poverty is quite literally what the nation considered upper middle class back circa 1970. When you become the wealthiest, most luxurious, most fat-assed society the world has ever known, the threshold for what constitutes poverty is considerably different. Americans today have no idea what poverty is.
 
#8 ·
Each generation influences the next generation. Somewhere it reached a point where, "I don't want my child to suffer so lets do this instead" which then make their child's experience flawed to a point. It also just depends on the child's environment, growing up poor is gonna have a different perceptive than someone who has access to money. Some families everyone may work to pay the bills. Other families may kick their kid out after they reach 18 whether or not they are ready or not.

When I was working at Target, a family from Illinois came in to buy some items. I guess it is for their kid who was attending college here, they bought:
  • One or two 50" or 55" TVs
  • Microwave
  • Mini-fridge
  • Bunch of food
  • Maybe a gaming console
  • And a whole lot of items
  • Total was probably over $2500
  • They put all of their items into the big Range Rover and the small Range Rover
  • They offered me a tip but while I really wanted it I declined it because we are not allowed to take it
I had two trains of though here for their kid. "He is very lucky to get all of these" and "I wondered if he is a spoiled brat". Maybe his parents taught him good and it is worth it or his parents spoil him. I would never know. As far as I know for others, it's "you're going to college? good luck!" and off you go.
 
#9 ·
How dare you!
It is all for the best of the children!!
Hold on, but what exactly is a child? Used to be maturity age at 16.. then 18.. then 21.. then 25... they are now talking about making it 30, what makes sense, considering how dumbed down and immature population comes out of schools, that teach zero of practicality and common sense but a lot about tolerance and gender stuff( I used to have ten years of consecutive crafts classes, including woodworking, metal works, electrical stuff, driving) and, by the last 2 years, we had 2 years of military and civil defense prep. I mean, we could - and did - make our own benches, operate lathe, drive a car, do basic electric repairs, disassemble and reassemble various arms and use them. Plus foreign language as a must do. Shoot, we even had classes on manners...
Oh, hold on, that was damn concentration camp commie totalitarian forced schooling, totally unacceptable in society that needs only 2 thumbs to text on smart phone and desire to become only a business manager, as China will manufacture everything else....
 
#11 ·
How dare you!
It is all for the best of the children!!
Hold on, but what exactly is a child? Used to be maturity age at 16.. then 18.. then 21.. then 25... they are now talking about making it 30, what makes sense, considering how dumbed down and immature population comes out of schools, that teach zero of practicality and common sense but a lot about tolerance and gender stuff( I used to have ten years of consecutive crafts classes, including woodworking, metal works, electrical stuff, driving) and, by the last 2 years, we had 2 years of military and civil defense prep. I mean, we could - and did - make our own benches, operate lathe, drive a car, do basic electric repairs, disassemble and reassemble various arms and use them. Plus foreign language as a must do. Shoot, we even had classes on manners...
Oh, hold on, that was damn concentration camp commie totalitarian forced schooling, totally unacceptable in society that needs only 2 thumbs to text on smart phone and desire to become only a business manager, as China will manufacture everything else....
I wanna say if my high school actually had an Autos program I might've made a different career choice. My high school did have a wood working room (or related) that was never used... My class of 2012 was also the one with the least school spirit and a "IDGAF" attitude. Or at the very least, the people who was in a extracurricular activity at the beginning of high school were long out of it at the end.
 
#10 ·
Somewhere it reached a point where, "I don't want my child to suffer so lets do this instead" which then make their child's experience flawed to a point. It also just depends on the child's environment, growing up poor is gonna have a different perceptive than someone who has access to money.

Seriously? Poor in THIS country? With free food, free clothes, free shelter, free medicine? I shit you not, I can do fine off clothes and food banks... That's of course, if you pass on mansions, all the entertainment, electronics, conveniences, "recreational" drugs, sports and so on.... what constitutes "normal" life. And spare me "I can't find job" tune too...
Y'all have no idea what poor is.
 
#12 ·
Somewhere it reached a point where, "I don't want my child to suffer so lets do this instead" which then make their child's experience flawed to a point. It also just depends on the child's environment, growing up poor is gonna have a different perceptive than someone who has access to money.

Seriously? Poor in THIS country? With free food, free clothes, free shelter, free medicine? I shit you not, I can do fine off clothes and food banks... That's of course, if you pass on mansions, all the entertainment, electronics, conveniences, "recreational" drugs, sports and so on.... what constitutes "normal" life. And spare me "I can't find job" tune too...
Y'all have no idea what poor is.
Most people don't really know what poor is really like and I am lucky to have my 08 Camry as my first car.
 
#14 ·
Well, Emirates and Dubai are fattest and most luxurious. Iceland has the highest life standard. There used to be a guy called Qaddafi, who also did some straight out crazy stuff for his people, but we all know how that went.
US is the highest CONSUMPTION rate country in the world. 42% of the world consumption, I believe. That does not make people rich, life luxurious or else similar attributes of welfare. It makes nation drowned in debt, that's it. Starting with a pauper in the street and ending with its "government".
 
#17 ·
Absolutely. And can you imagine the "forgiving student debt" message by some presidential candidates? If you choose to go to college, learn some skills, work internships, go live at home after graduating, and pay the debt off as quickly as possible. Last I checked, student debt was $1.5 trillion. Auto loans were $1.3 trillion. What's going to be next, forgiving auto debt too? Yay, free new cars for everyone! Insane.
 
#22 ·
No long term debt for the last 23 years (since age 43). Only borrowed on our paid for house to build one worth a lot more. Then paid that off when we had sold the previously paid for house ($120k home leveraged into $329k home TAX FREE). Nothing like the feeling of OWNERSHIP of things normally financed. I drive the cheapest car you can imagine, 1500 miles a month for less than $100 including gas, taxes, registration and 4 CENTS a mile for gas, 60 bucks for 1500 miles.

84 payments? I don't want a single payment. Someone wants to think I am poor? I could care less.My Echo has the original paint on it. It would cost more, than I paid for the car, to paint it and it looks fine with little clear coat failure. I guess it must be due to the fact it was built in Japan.

My advice, buy the older car in good shape. Stay out of the debt trap. Save the payments you would make for 84 months while driving the older car, maybe even a couple of them (old cars) and you will never go back to the debt trap, where you are one emergency away from financial collapse. I traded a quarter of my total home equity for close to $100k in cash.

Still don't owe a dime on my cars or home. That $100k is money that DID NOT pay interest. While you are waiting for the cars to age, you can do some research and figure out which is the best choice. Then buy it for 30 cents on a dollar and get 75% of the useful life. Let those who have to beat everyone buy the first two thirds of the depreciation. Just make sure they took care of your purchase before it was yours.
 
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